Comments

"The problem is that the people on the left are the Statists. The people who want the government to do stuff want government to pick up guns, point them at people's f'in necks and pull the trigger if they don't comply. The law is an opinion with a gun. Statism is violence. The left worships the power of the state to socially engineer, to achieve what they consider to be "the good". The libertarian position is, listen, put down the gun, then we can talk...Libertarians are kind of sensitive to having to follow the deranged global central planning consciences of irrational people at gunpoint. It's really the guns that are the problem with the state."

The commenters on the Indy site remind me of a bunch of guys getting together for a few beers in the evening hashing out topics according to their political slants with many a pointed but friendly jab. Sometimes it is factual, many times not. It is a place to air their (pet) views and I wonder if any views are ever exchanged.

Ken you are just having a knee-jerk reaction because he attacked the 'left', however the quote was drawn slightly out of context. I promise he does not vote for Republicans at all, ever. If you notice, the right ultimately uses the very same techniques and principles of the left in this case. In fact, he doesn't even vote because he doesn't believe in violence and supporting the state is supporting violence unless they are merely protecting individual rights. The state has gone so far off course from that, I can understand why a truly non-violent person would simply stop giving any form of perceived consent to have their rights violated.

The reason Molyneux was calling out the left here in this instance was because they are the ones who promote the violent philosophy of the state directly whereas Republicans will state a goal of having more reliance on the individuals. The actions of both groups are ultimately atrocious and he is well aware of that.

His main point is that the elephant in the room is a gun. Violence against non-violent individuals is never a moral means to achieve an end, even if it is perceived to be a 'good' one. But it won't be, because rich people use government to keep poor people out of industry. Think about it - a rich person provides Good A to the population at a cost of $2/unit and goes out and buys three sports cars and a mansion. They are now producing Good A and spending about $200k/year on house/car payments and living expenses. That means every time a poor person buys the product at $2/unit they are financing this person's expensive lifestyle. A poor person is only living on $20-$30k/year, they could produce Good A and sell it at $1.29/unit, if only the rich person hadn't gone to the government and passed a bunch of regulations making it too expensive for the poor person to even begin producing the goods at all.

The difference between libertarians and those stuck in the right/left paradigm is that libertarians understand this basic concept that poor people are able to produce goods and services more cheaply and overcome the rich in this way. They believe in the ability of the poor to achieve themselves. People on the left and right seem to have no faith in poor people to be able to produce and create for themselves.. Republicans write them off as lazy and the left just wants to give them endless handouts to solve albeit an important problem we face. Unfortunately both make the problem much worse with their solutions, even though the intent is good. But the fact is the poor are very intelligent and industrious, often even more so than rich people. They can be successful if given the chance. We don't give them a chance, every industry in this country is so highly regulated that it makes the cost to great for poor people to enter the marketplace and compete against rich people. Think about it, a poor person can literally be shot with a gun for opening a lemonade stand on their front lawn if they refuse to stop selling the lemonade and be interrogated or kidnapped by police. The fact that doesn't bother very many people is very chilling to libertarians.

LoonPt, I'm sorry I did not bother to read that lengthy response as it was obvious from the first sentence you've lost any sense of humor. In addition, how is this topic appropriate for "calling out the Left" or even the "Right" ?!

This is why I voted for.. #6! Don't be such a dogmatist! JL you also support racial epithets so your endorsement don't mean much!

are we all that much "above averidge?" [sic] I mostly agree, Tabatha, but have been trying to change my ways and possible "hear" better. Loon has some points, and when we go back to the French Revolution and the original Chamber of Deputies...it was a semi-circle, and truly the "far left" fringe [what loon characterizes as "the left Statists"] gets pretty close to the "far right" folks who are more than a fringe. Tea Party and Occupy have a few interesting similarities, which other commenters have noted.For example, BC trashed me with my initial comment about the Morua DUI and death of the young woman: he's right, it IS about our alcohol and drug celebration culture. Thank you, Bill.I'm done with hassling JL with the racial epithets thing.